Better decisions impacting water

The Beira Autonomous Sanitation Unit (SASB) has more than 250 staff and is responsible for provision of urban drainage and sanitation services in the area under the jurisdiction of Beira municipality. Beira municipality has the greatest population density in the central region of Mozambique. SASB is a unit of the Beira Municipality with administrative and financial autonomy. Through the FLL program, the municipality wants to encourage their workers to come up with new urban drainage and sanitation ideas and solutions and also influence the civilian behaviour. The idea is not to make an outside analysis of what needs to be done but give the public servants, who are dealing with the problems every day, an incentive to fix problems themselves.
Civil servants participating in this program tend to be on the frontline delivering the services, receiving customer feedback. As a result they have great potential to come up with new solutions to old problems which best fit customer needs and wishes.

The World Bank is a partner of VNG International and the Municipality of Beira in this program and is responsible for the monitoring, evaluation and learning. The World Bank has implemented pilots in the past and evaluated them and will help move the FLL concept forward.

Results

A preliminary analysis of results show the pilot did induce change in individual participants. It fostered a team spirit helping them identify as one group knowing their individual strengths and their group strengths. It focused the group of civil servants to work as a team and develop a plan to implement in their work place, in a month’s time, based on the field based realities, needs and problems and the resources available within each department. Overall, it led to a feeling of empowerment amongst participants and a greater feel of having a voice within the organization.